squeezed my hand into a ball and reached past him to press the side of my fist against the glass. Then I used the tip of my finger to make five toes. I did the same with my other hand and pulled back.
“You are here,” I said, and drew an arrow to the footprints. “Now you decide where you’re going next.”
Stella had played the game with me millions of times. She could always tell when I was getting restless in the car, so she would wait until we hit a red light on the road, lean across me, and make the first prints, and then I would take over, marking my own feet up and down the passenger-side window with my tiny hand as I narrated an imaginary journey.
I looked at Jonah, waiting.
“Like, I could go . . . ,” he started slowly, hesitant.
“To never-never land to play hide-and-seek with the Lost Boys,” I said. “Or to Papa Smurf’s house to help him outsmart Gargamel.”
He was nodding then as he put his fist to the glass and pressed. “Or to Batman’s cave?”
“Absolutely. Walk on over. Tell me what happens when you get there,” I said, so he did and I sat with him for a while, playing the game for almost an hour while Marni flipped through a magazine, occasionally nodding off.
Sometime after Colby, Kansas, and before the Colorado line, I remembered the money Stella slipped into my pregnancy book. I was back in my seat by then, so I pulled out mypurse and flipped through the pages, hoping for a twenty, or a fifty if she was feeling especially sad about me going away. But there were no bills at all. Instead I found a piece of yellow paper torn from the legal pad she kept in the kitchen, folded and tucked into the page that began the chapter titled “Your Fourteenth Week of Pregnancy,” which surprised me because I’d had no idea Stella was counting.
Emmy was awake by then, so when I unfolded the paper, she said, “What is it?” and put on those little black reading glasses. She was there looking over my shoulder when I read the name Ryan Cooper followed by a street address in San Francisco. Below it my mother had written one sentence: “I promise this is all I know,” scrawled above a sloppy X and an O , in Byzantine Ceiling Blue ink.
“Who’s Ryan Cooper?” Emmy asked, and she took the paper and squinted at my mother’s handwriting. “Is it someone you know in San Francisco?” she said.
But I couldn’t really hear her anymore because my mind was wobbly as I realized Stella knew all along, that even though I’d stopped asking about him years ago, she knew I’d never stopped wondering. She probably knew before I did that my trip with Emmy would end up being all about my dad. I guess sometimes that’s how mothers work.
“Is it someone we can stay with?” Emmy asked. “Because I don’t think this babysitting fund’s going to last long,” she said. “I don’t mind spending it, but I’d rather not sleep in a shit hole.” She stopped then because I guess she noticed my hands were shaking. “Hey,” she said. “What is it?”
And then I finally told her about my dad in San Francisco. I told her about Stella leaving my grandmother for California, about her living out west for a year and a half before she gotpregnant, and about the way I imagined her and my father falling in love in a city that always seemed so energized and full of possibilities.
“She was nineteen when she found out she was pregnant, so she moved back to Pennsylvania, which is where I was born. She left him there and decided we didn’t need him.” I folded and unfolded the piece of paper as I spoke. “I’m not even sure he knows about me.”
“I guess I never thought to ask about your dad,” she said. “I just figured you were one of those kids who only had a mom. I just figured Stella wasn’t sure,” she said, and I tried to decide what would have been worse, having a mother who didn’t know who my father was or having a mother who knew and just wouldn’t share him, wouldn’t give me any of
“You are here,” I said, and drew an arrow to the footprints. “Now you decide where you’re going next.”
Stella had played the game with me millions of times. She could always tell when I was getting restless in the car, so she would wait until we hit a red light on the road, lean across me, and make the first prints, and then I would take over, marking my own feet up and down the passenger-side window with my tiny hand as I narrated an imaginary journey.
I looked at Jonah, waiting.
“Like, I could go . . . ,” he started slowly, hesitant.
“To never-never land to play hide-and-seek with the Lost Boys,” I said. “Or to Papa Smurf’s house to help him outsmart Gargamel.”
He was nodding then as he put his fist to the glass and pressed. “Or to Batman’s cave?”
“Absolutely. Walk on over. Tell me what happens when you get there,” I said, so he did and I sat with him for a while, playing the game for almost an hour while Marni flipped through a magazine, occasionally nodding off.
Sometime after Colby, Kansas, and before the Colorado line, I remembered the money Stella slipped into my pregnancy book. I was back in my seat by then, so I pulled out mypurse and flipped through the pages, hoping for a twenty, or a fifty if she was feeling especially sad about me going away. But there were no bills at all. Instead I found a piece of yellow paper torn from the legal pad she kept in the kitchen, folded and tucked into the page that began the chapter titled “Your Fourteenth Week of Pregnancy,” which surprised me because I’d had no idea Stella was counting.
Emmy was awake by then, so when I unfolded the paper, she said, “What is it?” and put on those little black reading glasses. She was there looking over my shoulder when I read the name Ryan Cooper followed by a street address in San Francisco. Below it my mother had written one sentence: “I promise this is all I know,” scrawled above a sloppy X and an O , in Byzantine Ceiling Blue ink.
“Who’s Ryan Cooper?” Emmy asked, and she took the paper and squinted at my mother’s handwriting. “Is it someone you know in San Francisco?” she said.
But I couldn’t really hear her anymore because my mind was wobbly as I realized Stella knew all along, that even though I’d stopped asking about him years ago, she knew I’d never stopped wondering. She probably knew before I did that my trip with Emmy would end up being all about my dad. I guess sometimes that’s how mothers work.
“Is it someone we can stay with?” Emmy asked. “Because I don’t think this babysitting fund’s going to last long,” she said. “I don’t mind spending it, but I’d rather not sleep in a shit hole.” She stopped then because I guess she noticed my hands were shaking. “Hey,” she said. “What is it?”
And then I finally told her about my dad in San Francisco. I told her about Stella leaving my grandmother for California, about her living out west for a year and a half before she gotpregnant, and about the way I imagined her and my father falling in love in a city that always seemed so energized and full of possibilities.
“She was nineteen when she found out she was pregnant, so she moved back to Pennsylvania, which is where I was born. She left him there and decided we didn’t need him.” I folded and unfolded the piece of paper as I spoke. “I’m not even sure he knows about me.”
“I guess I never thought to ask about your dad,” she said. “I just figured you were one of those kids who only had a mom. I just figured Stella wasn’t sure,” she said, and I tried to decide what would have been worse, having a mother who didn’t know who my father was or having a mother who knew and just wouldn’t share him, wouldn’t give me any of
Similar Books
